[RESOLVED] Bad floppy

[unregistered user]

Anyone have any method to recover from "system can't read from device" on floppy? Although Windows shows the capacity/used/free accuratly, it can't read it, so I'm sure it's a physical disk problem. But I NEED this info!

[shawnMt]

Nice tip!

Really though I've used Spinrite to recover data from a bad floppy.

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Paint your old laptop!

[tregee]

This happens alot dur to the head on the floppy drive being dirty. Try takeing a can of air to it. It should help. Also try a different floppy.

[RGK01]

This could ruin the disk so you won't ever be able to get the data back, but I've found a lot of times if you heat the disk the data becomes readable. I had a gravity furnace in the shop and I used to stick the floppy in the vent for a couple of minutes - put it back in the machine and most of the time they would work.

[techs]

sometimes a scandisk will do it

[muski]

A customer of mine brought in a floppy with the same problem, he had critical business data on it. I did a scandisk on it, but that didnt work, so I ran Norton Disk Doctor and that fixed it.

[sbsguy]

I have a client who gets hundreds of floppies with database information mostly txt format.(when a disk is not readable) I use a disk image program and copy the image to the hard drive. Most of the data is there except a small amount. Then use other programs to convert the data to a useable format.